Broken Souls, page 18
Easy.
And that’s when the first ghosts come boiling out of the stairwell, howling for my blood.
A group of ghosts is a fraid. No, really. I don’t know what jackass came up with that one, but it’s a real thing. A fraid of ghosts. Clearly, they’ve never seen a group of ghosts. Otherwise it’d be a “Pants-Shitting Terror” of ghosts.
They’re like sharks, and near as these ones can tell I’m chum in the water. They feed off life, those little scraps of experience and hope they can barely remember. Guy told me a while ago that as they fade it’s because they’re draining away to whatever final rest they’re going toward, like water circling a drain. I don’t know what’s on that other side for most of them, but to have your consciousness get stripped away from you like that must be agonizing.
They seethe out of the stairwell like a tsunami, every single one of them wanting a piece of me. One is annoying enough, but twenty will be like running me through a wood chipper. I knew this was going to happen. You hang out on this side for more than a couple of minutes and you will get their attention. I was just hoping I’d already have the drop on Sergei and his sister before they showed.
I have a choice to make. Lose the element of surprise and maybe get killed by the crazy Russian Wonder Twins, or stick around and definitely get killed by the ectoplasmic eating machines. Not much of a choice, really. I concentrate on the spell to flip me back over to the land of the living.
Nothing happens. It’s like turning the key in the ignition on a cold morning. I can feel it clicking, but it doesn’t turn over.
I don’t have time to try it again before they’re on me. I turn tail and run. One of the ghosts takes a swipe at me that clips the back of my neck. I feel a flare of icy pain as its fingers connect. I push past the pain and keep running.
With so many tear-downs and rebuilds on this floor it’s hard to tell which walls are psychically weak enough to pass through and which are old and solid. There’s too much visual clutter. I make a best guess and go down what looks like a collection of store rooms, but over here they could just be old overlapping walls that don’t exist anymore.
I’m feeling the effect of the entropy that’s sapping my power, but I should be able to pop back over to the other side without a problem. So what the hell is blocking me?
Sergei. With Kettleman’s memories he knows who he’s up against. Little fucker must have set a trap for me knowing full well that I’d try this trick. Probably has some spell running on this side that’s acting like a signal jammer keeping me from crossing back. So where is it and how do I shut it off?
Any wall I can go through the ghosts can go through, too, and they’re on my trail like wolves. I need to slow them down, change their focus, if I’m going to have any chance of getting out of this alive. I yank up my sleeve, run the box cutter through the small patch of scarred skin above my left wrist, and shake my arm as I run down the hall.
Blood spatters through the air, droplets landing on the floor behind me. It slows them down as they sense the life scattering around them. A good dozen of the spirits jump on the drops, desperately trying to lap up the blood I’m leaving for them. It won’t be enough, though.
I pocket the cutter, pull the Sharpie and some nametags from my pocket. I scribble on them as I run, slapping them on doorjambs, walls, the floor. One wall looks solid and isn’t and I almost take a tumble as my hand passes through it. Draw, O coward. Live not on evil. Sex at noon taxes. Nonsense palindromes, nothing complicated, but the ghosts jump on them like the good little obsessive-compulsives that they are, stopping to read them backwards and forwards and backwards again. If I had sunflower seeds I’d toss a handful behind for them to stop and count.
Soon I have enough breathing room that I can actually pay attention to what I’m looking for. The blood and palindromes won’t hold them long, so I have to work fast. Spells cast over here don’t last and I’m cut off from the pool of magic on the living side. So whatever is blocking me has to be actively generating the spell and it has to have enough of its own juice that it can last. Both of those are pretty easy to make.
Now I just need to find the goddamn thing. It could be as small as a ballpoint pen or a scrap of paper. But it should also be pumping out a lot of magic and in this dead place that should be pretty easy to spot. It’s harder here because everything gets sucked up by the environment, but I can still feel the magic tugging on the back of my mind the way I can feel it when somebody casts a spell nearby or draws power from the pool.
It takes me almost a minute to find it, mostly because half my attention is on the mass of ghosts all slurping at the drops of blood I left or hovering next to the palindromes in a boiling mass, flowing in and out of each other like water. It’s close, which it would have to be. I step slowly through the walls toward it, hoping I don’t attract too much attention.
Too late. A few ghosts break off to come snuffling for me like bloodhounds. I bolt, which gets some of the others’ attention. I need to find this thing fast. The tugging in the back of my head gets stronger in one direction, weaker in another. I’m playing a game of hot and cold with a swarm of ghosts on my heels.
And then I see it. A cell phone on the floor. I grab it, see runes on the back written in crayon, of all things. I wipe them away with my thumb and that pressure I’ve been feeling in the back of my mind cuts off as the spell breaks. That it was written in crayon is weird, but I don’t have time to think about it. The rest of the ghosts are almost on me.
I flip back to the land of the living. Color and sound all rush at me as the world solidifies. I find myself inside one of the storage units as the nearest ghost takes a swipe for me. The ghosts and I can still see each other, but now they can’t touch me. Frustrated, they swarm around and through me, claw at a meal they can’t get to anymore. I stick out my tongue and give them the finger.
The cellphone I brought back with me from the other side buzzes in my hand. I look at it, confused, then see a coffee can on the floor with a Bluetooth headset taped to it, wires sticking out and ending in a brick of white plasticine stuck to the top. Good bet that’s not coffee in there.
I’m in a locked storage unit with a bomb about to go off and surrounded by ghosts who want to eat me. Nicely done, Sergei, you clever sonofabitch. I didn’t just walk, I fucking ran into this trap.
This is gonna suck.
I turn toward the wall, break into a run. I’ve only got about five or six feet of space, but if I time it right I might survive. I run through the ghosts and then, just as I’m about to hit the wall, I flip over to the dead side.
And the bomb goes off. I transition before the shock wave hits. I watch the room disintegrate in silence around me. I run through the ghosts as they realize their meal’s back on the table. Hands and teeth rake through my skin, a hundred razor-sharp soldering irons. I keep moving, push past the pain, shove my way through the crowd until I’m a good four or five hallways past the unit that just blew up. Shift back before the ghosts can take anything else off of me.
Light and smoke and sound crash in on me and I collapse to the floor in the middle of a hallway. Fire alarms going off, water spraying from overhead sprinklers. My arms and back where the ghosts hit me feel like they’re on fire. My right hand is crossed with welts, each line glowing faintly like white fire under the skin. I try to make a fist, but even moving it is agony.
I drag myself from the floor. A wave of nausea hits me and I throw up. The ghosts are still swarming around me, harmless on this side. Probably more confused than ever. I swat at a few of them, my hand passing harmlessly through cold spots. They don’t care. They still think they’re getting a free meal.
On the other side it was hard to really get a sense of the current layout. Too many confusing walls from the past overlapping one another. But on this side there are signs and numbered doors. Even through the smoke I can tell where I am. From where I saw Sergei and his sister it’s clear they still don’t know where the Ebony Cage is. Vivian’s unit is on the other side of the building from where I saw them. Just around the corner from me.
I laugh, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. “They’re digging in the wrong place.” I lean against the wall, glad to feel something solid. That’s not the longest time I’ve spent on the other side, but it’s damn close and the first time I’ve been hit by that many ghosts. Everything hurts. The spots where they tagged me feel like they’re on fire. I’m feeling drained and weak. With the amount of magic I expended and that the other side drained from me I doubt I’ve got enough left to light a fart. But I’m going to have to move. The only advantage I might have is if Sergei thinks I’m dead. And if I tap the local pool to fill up, he’s going to know I’m not.
I don’t sense any new magic going off, but that doesn’t mean much. Gotta hand it to him, he’s smarter than I thought. Get me stuck on the other side, give me the way to get out, and the minute I use it, set a bomb off under my feet. Well played. I’m going to enjoy killing him.
With Kettleman’s skill Sergei could have set some more warning triggers and I might not know it, but I’m hoping he was expecting the bomb to take care of that for him. If he’s betting on the Ebony Cage to get him into Mictlan then he doesn’t need me anymore. I’m just a loose end that needs tying up.
Gunfire erupts in the distance, cutting through the sounds of the fire alarm. Hard to tell but I don’t think it’s inside the building. That won’t last. A second later my phone buzzes in my pocket and I almost have a heart attack thinking it’s Sergei’s detonator. I pull it out to see the number. Gabriela. Looks like she’s called me a couple times already. No coverage in the lands of the dead.
I answer the phone. “So glad I’m not trying to sneak up on the bad guy or anything,” I say.
“Then turn off your goddamn ringer. If you’re where I think you are you already blew your cover,” Gabriela says. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“One of these days, probably. And how’s your evening going?”
“Was that explosion you?” she says.
“Are those gunshots you?” I say back.
“You sound delirious,” she says. Pause for more gunfire. “You hurt?”
“Ghosts tried to eat me. Sergei tried to blow me up. I’ve been better.”
“What floor are you on?”
“Fourth. Come on up, we’ll have some laughs. Sergei and his sister are around here, somewhere. Maybe we can double date. Get milk shakes, hit the sock hop later.”
“Jesus, you are in bad shape. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time?”
“You are such a pain in the ass,” she says.
“Part of my charm.”
“Sure, keep telling yourself that.”
The wall in front of me shimmers, glows blue. I’m too slow and before I can react Sergei, wearing his original-issue Russian mobster body, steps out of the wall with a big-ass Desert Eagle in his hand.
And he shoots me.
The magic in my tats does what it can to protect me and there’s a blinding flash of light and heat as the spells bleed off the energy of the round before it hits me. But a big fucking bullet’s a big fucking bullet and it blows a hole right through my abdomen. It’s so fast and so intense it takes me a second to register what’s happened. My legs drop out from under me, the phone falls from my hand.
Sergei’s sister steps through the wall behind him. Her steps tentative, eyes wide, like she’s not sure what’s happening. She peeks around his shoulder like a spooked pet and it occurs to me that maybe she doesn’t really know what’s happening. Compared to him, she’s tiny. Maybe five foot six, but folded in on herself, dwarfed not only by Sergei’s size, but by his personality, too. On the train she came across as crazed. Living in the shadow of a brother like that, I can see why.
“Bro,” Sergei says, leaning down and getting into my face. It’s hard to hear him past the ringing in my ears. It occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve actually heard him speak. Where Kettleman’s voice is clear and crisp, Sergei speaks English as a second language, his Russian accent thick like cold molasses. A smile splits his face like a crack in the earth, showing three gold teeth on the left side. He’s wearing a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants. Probably got tired of his body shrinking and growing and his clothes not keeping up. I press a hand against my belly to keep my guts in place. The initial shock is starting to wear off and the pain is kicking in.
“Sergei, buddy,” I say through gritted teeth. “Been looking for ya.”
“And here I am,” he says. “Glad you didn’t die, bro. Still want your skin.”
“You probably shouldn’t have put a hole in it, then.”
He laughs. “I fix that as soon as I take it.”
“You take it? I thought your little sister was gonna get it. She almost got me on the train.”
His brow furrows, face twisting into a frown that looks like a rockslide. He turns to her. “This true?”
“What, you didn’t know?” I say. “Oh, man, it was epic. She killed, what, twenty, thirty people on that train? More? How’d you get away, anyway?”
“What is this?” he says. “What is this about a train?”
She shrinks away from him like he’s on fire. “I saw him. When I was by the bar. Just as you described him. And the knife was in the car. So I followed him. He took the train and I followed him.” She lifts herself to her full height and it’s like watching an angry flower defying the sun.
He slaps her with the back of his hand, a bone-jarring crack that echoes in the hallway. She shrinks back into herself, but it only lasts a moment before she’s back in his face again, an angry bruise blooming on her face.
“You promised me,” Katya screams. “You promised me a skin.”
“When I am done. Not before. I told you this.”
“When you’re done. Always when you’re done. When will that be? You have had weeks and only now you move.”
“Soon I will have the cage and I will finish this. So shut up and let me do that.” They start screaming at each other in Russian. I have no idea what they’re saying, but it can’t be good.
I’m losing a lot of blood, feeling kind of woozy and goddamn this hurts. And that’s probably why it’s taken me this long to realize Sergei’s Sergei. He’s not wearing Kettleman.
He can’t cast spells.
I don’t have a lot of power left, but I have enough. I push past the pain, focus my will and send out a blast of lightning that fills the hallway. The blast hits them both, but Sergei’s fast. The moment my spell goes off he’s Kettleman again, throwing up a shield that protects him from the worst of it. It shoves him hard against the wall, but it doesn’t take him down. Katya, on the other hand, gets the brunt of it. She hits the floor, spasms with the voltage.
Sergei throws out a spell of his own and my throat squeezes closed as the air tightens around my neck. He lifts me up, my feet dangling inches off the floor. I can’t breathe, I’m bleeding out and my head feels like it’s about to pop off my neck. My vision is starting to go dark around the edges. I’m not sure what’s going to kill me faster, blood loss or asphyxiation.
“That was very foolish, Mister Carter,” Sergei says in the crisp, clipped tones of Kettleman’s scholarly voice. He looks over at his sister lying on the ground. She’s stopped convulsing, but I doubt she’s dead. The pressure around my throat loosens and I can breathe again. I suck in air with a loud wheeze.
“I was hoping I could just take your skin without a fuss,” he says. “Not that I need it, anymore. Maybe I should just kill you. What do you think?”
“How are you gonna get into Mictlan without it? That is your plan, right? Use my connection to Santa Muerte to get there? She been whispering in your ear, telling you what to do, and you just got sick of it? That about the size of things?”
“Nicely done,” he says. “Her, or someone like her. I don’t like being made a puppet.”
“More the puppet master type?”
“Quite. That was the plan, yes. But if I take your skin, it’s not really my power, is it? It’s like wearing a suit of clothes. That’s all these are. Costumes. They’re not really me. But imagine if I can kill a god. I could take all of Mictlan.”
“You’re an idiot. You ever wonder why Kettleman didn’t try something like that already?”
“Because he was weak,” he says.
“Because he wasn’t stupid. Yeah, you might know what he knew, but it hasn’t made you any smarter. It’s just made you more confused. You’re like a monkey with an education.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he says. “You’ve already thrown away the gifts Santa Muerte’s given you. I don’t think I want your tainted point of view in my head. And once I have the Ebony Cage I’ll have more than enough power to punch through to Mictlan. I don’t need you at all.”
“Gotta keep me around a little longer, at least,” I say.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Storage unit’s locked.” I’m starting to slur. “Warded. You might be able to break in, but you’ll destroy the cage if you do.”
“I see. I suppose you have the key, then?”
“Right here in my pock—Goddammit. Can we go back to before I told you where the key is?”
“Blood loss is not your friend, Mister Carter. Kindly hand me the key.” He steps close, puts his hand out. I reach into my pocket. Of course I don’t have a key. But I do have this exploding marble that Gabriela gave me at her hotel.
I pull it out and shove it into his eye.
He screams as his eyeball pops with a squelch, my thumb digging into the socket and cramming the marble in as hard as I can. Gabriela said it would only effect the space of whatever it was used in, from a suitcase to a whole room. I wonder what it’ll do to the inside of his skull.
I pull my thumb out of his eye and he falls back, the spell holding me up dissipating as he claws at his face. I drop to the floor. He flails, tries to dig out the marble. I trigger it with a thought.
